


i, tiresias

by crownlessliestheking



Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works & Related Fandoms, The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Character Study, Corruption, Doriath, F/M, Helcaraxë, POV Second Person, Prophecy, Purple Prose, Seduction to the Dark Side, Temptation, The One Ring - Freeform, ambiguous ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-12
Updated: 2020-08-12
Packaged: 2021-03-04 21:47:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,153
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25263337
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crownlessliestheking/pseuds/crownlessliestheking
Summary: "In place of a Dark Lord, you would have a queen! Not dark, but beautiful and terrible as the dawn! Treacherous as the sea! Stronger than the foundations of the earth! All shall love me, and despair!"-Fellowship of the Ring
Relationships: Celeborn/Galadriel | Artanis, Celebrimbor | Telperinquar/Sauron | Mairon (Referenced), Galadriel | Artanis & The One Ring
Comments: 5
Kudos: 27





	i, tiresias

**Author's Note:**

> The culmination of the Huge Fucking Crush I've had on Galadriel ever since I was like six and saw LoTR for the first time.  
> Edit: Thank you so much to fantasychica37 for correcting me on my Middle English mistakes! Gah, I canNOT believe I forgot that thou was the intimate one, I really appreciate you taking the time to let me know about this <3 Hopefully it should scan a lot smoother now that I've made the adjustments you recommended.

**‘The finest act of seeing is necessarily always the act of not seeing something else.’**

**-Mark Z. Danielewski, House of Leaves.**

**~**

In a Hobbit’s hand, there is a Ring. In the soft hand of a softer creature, there is The Ring. The One Ring, and it could be yours.

It calls to you, it beckons in a tongue you have not heard spoken here since the Elder Days, the pure unsullied speech of the Undying Lands you once spurned, before it shifted.

_ O queen, would you not have me? O Artanis, Nerwen, tall and stout and bold, who hath looked upon the light of the Trees and captured it in your hair, I knoweth you. you cameth to this Middle Earth for conquest and glory, yearning for lands and subjects of your own. You incline to dominion; wouldst you not allow me to grant it? I see your desire, O queen of this realm under the golden leaves. Would you not see them stretch from shore to shore? _

And you do, even without your mirror- your mallorn trees spreading across this land, three burning stars upon the fingers of one hand and a band of simple gold on the other. Not the golden boughs of Lorien, no, but the deep, rich, satisfaction of power. You see your queendom, expanding and stretching before you, subjects and supplicants kneeling as you walk through the winding roads. No longer are you whispered of as a mere witch of the wood- you _are_ Lórien, fairer than the Dreamer’s gardens in the utter West, and far more terrible for you are inevitable, not nebulous and shadowy as is Irmo’s realm. You are no dream, after all.

You are their Queen, and they bow in obeisance as they must, for it is your due.

_ You who set her feet to the Grinding Ice, who turned her nose to the pity and condescension of the Valar, you who have chosen this Middle Earth as I once did- do you not wish to shape it to your will? There was no shame in you at declining an offer so poorly made, by those who had set foot here only to leave, by those who had not chosen these shores as you had. Pride burned righteous in your breast, your rage even hotter.  _

You remember this, too- the Pardon, as they called it. As if you were but a child who had been punished enough, as if they knew better. You could not agree. Celeborn, your dearest, would not have agreed- he was for this Middle Earth just as you were. He had not even considered it, though had you asked then, you know he would have sailed with you.

But you could not say yes. Bile had risen in your throat, the word stuck in your mouth all sweet and cloying and suffocating. Were you to simply agree, chastened and humbled, all but gelded? Were you to obediently follow simply because you had been told, were you to fall at the feet of the Valar in gratitude for unwanted pity?

Your uncle had been wrong about many things, but then, standing before the Herald of Manwë, you had heard the echo of his words from an Age past, the promise of kingdom and glory- and of the Valar’s failure. Heresy it had been then, and heresy it would be again to believe him and return to the Undying Lands.

But had he truly been wrong?

Had the Valar not failed this world, if not by allowing Morgoth to walk free before the Darkening, then by refusing to lift a finger until it was to sink an entire land, the home of those who had carved a place here with sword and blood? Were you to meekly follow, hiding beneath their skirts, as they abandoned this world yet again?

No. You were not- you could not. Their naivety stung, their ignorance was but salt in the wounds of those who had perished here. Your brothers- bright Findaráto, slaughtered by a mere beast; Angaráto and Aikanáro in the chaos and fire of Dagor Bragollach when the peace had stretched until it burst as Morgoth’s beasts burst from the mountain in flame and smoke.

What did the hosts of Valinor lose? What did they risk, in the end? Yes, they came, and even then you were grateful for that in your own way, but the bitterness remained in your mouth, in the pulp of your teeth. It stings less with time to soften the blow, but the truth, you still believe. They could have come sooner. They **ought** to have come sooner. Beleriand could have been saved rather than doomed, so many could have lived.

You were not grateful to those who had ignored you all those long centuries and left you to suffer. You could not be, and the expectation of it chafed.

_ Did you not come here for lands to call thine own? Did you not fight for them, spill blood for them? Your cousins came for the Silmarils, for an Oath, but not you. Turn not away from this world as they did, O Artanis.  _

You would not; you have not. How could you? You have chosen this world above all else, you have found love here that you could not have found elsewhere. You have built your home, protected it and guarded it.

_ Stiff-necked Artanis, are you truly sated with this small sovereignty? Do you not seek to extend your land, your claim? You absconded once, fled in shame from the smiths of Eregion, and did it not lead to doom and ruin? Had they but heeded your counsel, O queen, had you but the power to make them…did you not wish then, to bend Fëanor’s stubborn line to your will? _

You did.

Proud, noble Celebrimbor, he of the silver fist and but a babe when he had come to these shores. Yet his hand was ever open-palmed and generous, and he was too trusting by far. Had he listened-

You do not close your eyes, for that cannot block the darkness of the memory. Your littlest cousin, his body broken beyond recognition and nothing but a trophy of the Enemy.

 _No._ This, sharper than the rest, a lull in the sweetness of its words. Your grief for your cousin has not been this keen in a long, long time; now it is a fresh wound, the knife still twisted in your guts, and you are furious and guilty in turns. The sharpness of it takes your breath away for a moment. _No, it was his own fault. It was his foolish choice. Remember that._

It had been, in the end. If he had simply listened to you when you warned him of Annatar, none of this would have come to pass. Yet he was absorbed in his art and its elevation, and too generous with it by half in those golden days. No oaths were to be sworn, no secrets to be kept. No gems to be locked away and stolen, and yet even that had not ended as he had hoped.

Even he had to concede to _secrecy_ , in the end.

_ Yes. It was the secrecy that killed him. A foolish choice to stand unarmed against one of the Powers. _

You remember his head bent close to one with hair spun in fine gold, silver eyes meeting those of molten orange. He had not been diminished by his proximity to one of the Powers- the opposite, in fact. You had thought to perhaps to hope. To find solace in the fact that one of the Ainur had chosen this world as you all had, that their vision and might would add to its beauty and strength rather than lessen and seek to twist it.

It had been against your better judgement. You still wish you had been wrong.

_Yet, how could you be? Artanis, O queen, your knowledge and foresight even then were formidable. Your warnings went unheeded by Fëanor’s whelp’s whelp, you are not to blame. _

No. You are not. Was it not you who told him to hide the Three? You who acquiesced and obscured the knowledge from his own mind, you who severed their connection with their creator- you wielded that knife and severed something then that could not be reforged.

_Artanis, Galadriel, she-Elf, how dare thou how **dare** **thou** let him cut that from himself and let him come to me so diminished let him come to me unarmed and defenseless yet so stubborn begging to be broken I broke him I broke him and so I came to him to betray from the beginning did I not? Didst thou not see what might have been had he lived? Didst thou not see how truly great he could have been?  _

You do not regret it, not when he had asked you. It had to be done, lest your cousin rode at the head of Sauron’s armies when they came streaming from the ruins of Eregion, lest he be twisted and corrupted as did some of the captives of Angband. Morgoth’s cruelty was a hammer striking brittle metal; Sauron’s is insidious, twisting foe into friend, distorting those who fell into his clutches.

Findaráto, bold, brave, foolish Findaráto, delver of caves and builder of kingdoms with smiles for everyone- even he had chosen to die, and you had felt him go and something in your chest had caved in that day. Tyelpe too had chosen to die himself rather than survive at the Enemy’s hand, and you cannot fault him for that.

_ Thou guided the Ring-maker poorly, O Adamant one. Thou sold him to live by the price of his blood, precious though it was it did naught but delay the inevitable, it has only bought thee time but what is that time if not the blink of an eye for One such as me? I know how to wait, Artanis. And I shall have thee for what thou didst to him. _

You have lost so much to the Enemy. The taste of it is ash on your tongue, fire and smoke burning acrid against the back of your throat. He has done his utmost to turn your heart to a desolation, a fiery ruin like the Black Land in which he dwells and his armies seethe like rats and cockroaches pouring forth from a crevice disturbed. Brothers, cousins, friends. A daughter. And a granddaughter, too, who shall fade with this world for she has chosen it above all else, just as your ancient teacher’s daughter once did. With your prideful blood and defiant Melian’s and brash Lúthien’s in her veins, she had no choice at all.

 _Artanis, Nerwen- you are mother and daughter, lover and loved in turn, do you not know that such a choice may be avoided? _It is back, as sweetly beckoning as before. You are tempted, though you should not be- you could fade into the Uttermost West diminished and leave the world to its fate, but surrender has not been in your nature.

_ And why should it be, Lady of Lórien? You have named this place for the Gardens of Valinor, and you would make it more beauteous and bountiful. _

And why should it be, indeed? You have fought tooth and nail, bled for this world. You saw its potential without even seeing it; in Aman, you dreamed of these shores and when your feet touched the soil of Beleriand you knew that you were home.

_ Brighter light than Aman upon these shores, O Queen, you see it. Through you it could come into being, and would it not be ever greater for the suffering from whence it came? Have you not known pain beyond those gorging themselves fat and stupid in the Uttermost West who think themselves rulers, above all? What do they know of thy suffering, what do they know of your loss? What did they know of the kingdoms you built, that your kin built. _

Built, only to fall be it to Morgoth or the armies of the Valar with their shining banners retreating, to leave nothing but a sunken, shattered wreck of what once was your home. Such destruction, that the Powers are capable of.

_ Aye, O Queen, O Artanis. They destroy, but do you not preserve? Have you not used thy power, that star upon your finger, for such means? _

Yes. Yes, you have. You have preserved and elevated, protected this land that is yours from the Enemy, from the ravages of time. From orcs and men and fell creatures, you have created something far better than Doriath. Without you, without the power of the gifted Ring which you bear, it would fall, but you are not Melian. You would not leave this place to crumble whilst evil still stood and scratched its claws against the walls you have put up to keep it out.

_ Have you not dreamt of all Arda safe and adored, adoring in turn? _

Yes. Of course you have. Was that not the dream you shared with Tyelpe, before his vision had been darkened and corrupted by that of the Enemy? Was that not why you have built your kingdom here, so as to preserve what you could? But for the Enemy, your vision would be greater; you would use your Ring to restore that which had been lost during the First Age.

_ Yes. And with a steadfast companion at your side- _

Celeborn has always stood by you, has he not? Your match in all things.

_ Perhaps. _

Perhaps? You do not understand. There is no perhaps; there are no other companions that you would take; all those who you could have considered equal are gone, either to their grave or to the West, and is that not the same? You are the only one left, the first amongst the Peoples of Middle Earth, though it is not by choice.

_ Perhaps. _

_ He indeed chose this world as did you. But your sacrifices, O Artanis, can your husband truly understand those? Can one who hast not bathed in the light of the Trees understand what was lost? Nay, say not lost. Say the truth, that it was denied? He kneels before you as he should, as is your due and right; he sees you resplendent. _

_ But are you yet as terrible and beautiful in that splendor as your husband sees? _

The Ring on your finger is a cold star, and it burns with steady comfort; you have worn it from before the end of the last Age and now into this one, and you know- you know that it is not enough, tainted as it is. Your ambitions have not dimmed, but they have been tamed to those more reasonable, those easier to keep. You have settled for this land of golden woods and made a haven for the folk you call your own, and that is enough.

_ And is he not satisfied with your kingdom as it is?  _

But is it truly enough?

_ Nay, Artanis; a queen you shall not be without one to urge you ever upwards and to greatness. Think of what you could obtain; everything your hands could grasp, the stars themselves, even, had you true Power. Hadst thou A Power. _ Intimate, now. Soft as a lover's caress.  


The Power to grasp and keep that which you touched, to drive the taint and the evil from this land and not simply restore it, but bring it to its full potential, past the glory of the Uttermost West you left behind in contempt.

You can see it now, every trace of Sauron removed from this land, his evil scoured out. No more would Orcs pour forth like filth from the mountains, no more would a Balrog haunt the hallowed halls of Moria which was once Khazad-dûm, no more would Mordor stand as an affront to everything that is good in this world, spewing black smoke and bleak corruption across this world. You would topple the dark Tower there, blind the great searing Eye that haunts your nightmares, and in its place you would build yourself a palace, halls of growing green and gold, and you would have a crown and throne to match.

_ What thou hast now is not enough, O Artanis. Dost thou not wish for **more**? Thou couldst have it, O queen. I could give it. _

Your entire existence, distilled down to a single moment, a simple choice on the edge of a knife. You thought that moment had come when you stood in Valinor in the new dark, in a swarm of grief and rage, and you had decided to _leave_. You thought that moment had come first at Alqualonde, when kin raised swords to kin for the first time and you decided to leave anyway, that you would reap the spoils of it if you could for the foul deed was already done and not by your hands, no matter that you would have argued with your uncle had you been there. You thought it had come when you looked at your brother and said yes, I am with you, and forged onwards to the bitter cold of the Grinding Ice even as you saw ships burning on a distant shore in your mind’s eye. You thought it had come in twilight Doriath, with a silver-haired Sindar when you wed him and bound your fate to his, and to Beleriand entire.

You thought it had come at the end of the War, after the land you had seen and fallen in love with and in love _in_ had sunk beneath the cruel waves, as Morgorth’s fell armies had been hewn to nothing under the shining swords of the host from the Undying Lands- when they offered you pardon and you said _no_ , burning with rage, righteous. You were for this earth, and it would have you or else.

You thought it had been in Eregion, telling a cousin no, do not trust his guest- and then again, with a ring on your finger and an eye burning searing bright into your mind, and then again, with what was left of Tyleperinquar’s legacy, deciding to protect your realm, subvert the Enemy’s will.

You were wrong.

It is now, a Ring gleaming darkly gold, a small hand outstretched to give it freely.

Time dilates, stretches.

_Thou knowest thine innocence; rather, its lack. _

Your realm has been bought in blood; this, you know.

 _I know you, Galadriel_ , it sings, whispers at her core. It is a hand on her shoulder, drifting lower, fingers laced through her own. The heat of another's breath against the shell of her ear, soft as a lover. Despite herself, she shivers at the intimacy. _Artanis, student of Melian, thou knowest the power of a Maia. Wouldst thou not have it at thy command?_

You are a queen. You could be so much _more_.


End file.
